


Get with the Program

by katiemariie



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/F, Interspecies Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Seduction, The Jack Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 23:01:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9038714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiemariie/pseuds/katiemariie
Summary: When Ezri stops by the Jack Pack's new place on DS9 with a housewarming gift, she doesn't expect that she'll be psychoanalyzed and seduced. Although she probably should.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



> Written for kimaracretak as part of the Trek Rarepair Swap.

Ezri wanders the Promenade, looking in every stall and storefront for the perfect housewarming gift. One that says, “Welcome to Deep Space Nine. I hope you enjoy your first taste of independent living after decades of incarceration in an isolated facility that would be considered inhumane by Federation standards were your very existence not considered a crime.”

After an hour of looking, Ezri gives up. If such a gift does exist, it must be stocked exclusively in the same elusive store that sells a greeting card with the message: “For some reason, I assumed that being joined would make me attracted to men—I mean, I have plenty of memories of previous hosts being with men, which have given me some seriously steamy dreams… But, anyway, false alarm. I’m still a lesbian. Sorry about getting your hopes up. Better luck with the next host. Third time’s a charm, right?” And wherever that store is, it’s not on Deep Space Nine.

The problem with living in a post-scarcity society is that when you do have occasion to buy something, the purchase in question is so niche that it probably doesn’t exist. Something to do with supply and demand according to Quark. Novelty sells, but Federation tastes are so unpredictable that anticipating demand is almost impossible. This apparently has grave implications for the merchant class while increasing the prestige and bargaining power of artisans as purveyors of custom goods thereby upsetting the balance of the… something. Ezri doesn’t entirely recall or understand the macroeconomic implications of her own purchasing power. (No Dax was ever an economist. Or a Ferengi.)

All she knows is that it’s a lot harder having awkward conversations without a physical object (a card, a housewarming gift) providing a barrier between her and the person she’s speaking to. Even a few months later, Ezri remains a bit tender from braving a break-up/coming-out talk with Julian empty-handed. She almost regrets not wrestling Kukalaka from Julian’s arms, but that would’ve added another insult to the injury she was delivering.

Feeling a little raw and having learned that holding something is the best way to anchor her feet to the station (and lunch to her stomach), Ezri decides to pick up any old housewarming gift if only to have something in her hands.

Having never really met the station’s new inhabitants, Ezri goes for the standard human housewarming gift: a potted plant. (For reasons that don’t entirely make sense to Dax, humans often celebrate finding shelter by exchanging fauna. Why go through the effort of constructing a dwelling if only to immediately bring the wildlife indoors? Being a parasitic life form that has spent almost its entire existence living inside other beings, Dax supposes it will never understand the concept of home furnishings. Let the hosts worry about such matters.)

After making her purchase, Ezri makes her way out of the Promenade and into the habitat ring. Normally, she’d worry about dropping by unannounced especially given how new they are to the concept of visitors. However, at Julian’s suggestion, they’ve set up specific hours when “normates” can call on them. According to station gossip, Nog has already made good use of these “office hours.” Since introducing himself, Nog has come by practically every day to work on an article about self-sealing stembolts with Patrick, the older one. (Even after the Academy, Nog’s writing isn’t quite up to peer-reviewed standards yet.)

Approaching their door, Ezri steels herself, takes a deep breath, and hides the plant behind her back. The door opens before Ezri’s finger leaves the chime. It closes just as quickly: Jack takes one look at her, pronounces, “No shrinks allowed!” and then slams the door in her face.

Ezri didn’t even know the doors on this station could slam.

Undeterred, she chimes again. “I’m not here as a counselor,” she shouts through the door. And it’s true. When designing the station’s independent living pilot program, Julian elected to recruit a Bajoran social worker instead of Ezri, claiming that Bajoran involvement would make the program far more sustainable. Starfleet’s administration of DS9 is still (nominally) temporary.

“Oh, ho, ho,” Jack chortles from the other side of the door. “Very convenient. Now you don’t have to maintain patient confidentiality. You can tell all your buddies about how you helped the poor, little mutants. Nice try.”

“We don’t have to talk. I just wanted to give you something.” 

Silence.

Ezri adds limply, “I have a plant.”

The door swishes open.

“Gimme,” Jack snaps.

Ezri takes the plant out from behind her back and passes it over to him. “I wasn’t sure what kind of—”

“This is unacceptable,” Jack says, shaking his head frantically.

“Oh, um…”

“You can’t put this species in acidic soil.” Jack curls a protective arm around the potted plant. “What are you trying to do, woman? Murder it?”

“No, no. Obviously not,” she babbles. “I mean, I’ve tried to kill a lot of people over the years, so I’m pretty sure I know what that feels like. And this definitely wasn’t it.”

“So you’re just incompetent?” Jack asks.

“I wouldn’t go that far. The soil came like that when I bought it.”

“You bought this?”

“Yes?” Ezri responds warily.

“It’s a living thing!”

“It’s a plant.”

“You bought a living thing!” Jack exclaims. “Like some kind of chloroplast peddler.”

Ezri goes on the defensive. “I would’ve replicated it, but we’re not allowed to use the replicator to create living beings.”

“Yes!” Jack hisses. “Because living beings have intrinsic worth far exceeding whatever you shelled out in latinum to pay for this. You can’t just reduce a living being’s value to a number, a few strips of latinum.”

Ezri scoffs. “That’s rich coming from the guy who wanted to sell out the Alpha Quadrant to the Dominion.”

“To save lives!”

“Because the Dominion has always been so kind to its conquered people.”

Jack steps back, pointing a shaky finger at Ezri’s chest. “Stop trying to make me like you!” And with that, he storms off into his quarters, murmuring reassurances to the plant.

Left alone with the door wide open, Ezri takes Jack’s departure as an invitation to follow him inside. Stepping through the threshold, a stream of air courses over Ezri, flapping the fabric of her uniform and tousling her hair. She vaguely recalls the sensation from one past life or another—and a white room. Something to do with air currents? And tiny particles? Visions of primitive microprocessors dance in front of her mind’s eye.

She looks to Jack for an explanation, but he’s long gone, disappeared into one of the many rooms adjoined to the living area.

A voice as silky and lazy as a chocolate fountain provides an answer. “It’s a negative pressure system. Keeps undesirable air particles out whenever someone is brave enough to visit.” Languishing on a divan in the far corner, Lauren smiles up at Ezri with her Cheshire cat grin. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Lauren.” She outstretches a hand (palm down) but makes no sign of getting up.

Ezri crosses the whole of the room in an awkward powerwalk. “I’m Ezri. Dax.” She takes Lauren’s hand and—when in Rome—presses a kiss to her knuckles. Based on the persona Lauren’s cultivated, the absence of perfume on the underside of her wrist surprises Ezri.

“Are you sniffing me?” Lauren asks.

Ezri drops her hand. “What? No. I was just… That’s how I normally breathe.” She makes a show of inhaling deeply through her nostrils.

Lauren snickers. “You’re cute.”

“I get that a lot.” Ezri shrugs. “Most of the time people sound a little disappointed. ‘Jadzia was so tall and sexy, but you’re cute too.’”

“I like cute.” Lauren runs two fingers along the divan, drawing patterns in the raised fabric. “I can get tall and sexy at home.” Her fingers stop right in front of her crotch. “I have to go out for cute.”

Ezri stifles the urge to bend over and put her head between her knees, which only makes her think of putting her head between Lauren’s knees, which makes her crave the solace of passing out on the floor.

“So, um.” Ezri swallows. “A negative pressure system? That’s neat. Is that for an experiment or something?”

“As much as anything in this room is. Present company included.” Lauren stretches slowly. “We’re trying to create an olfactorily neutral environment.” Lauren says no more, giving Ezri the distinct impression that she is being tested on something.

She glances back at the door and to Lauren once again. “The best way to keep air from the corridor out is to blow air from in here out into the corridor.”

Lauren rewards her with a smile. “It seems like a waste sometimes, blowing out all of that precious filtered air into the hallway, but it’s the best solution we have at the moment. Patrick’s little Ferengi friend wouldn’t let us put up a filtration unit in the doorway. Insisted it posed some kind of fire hazard. Starfleet officers are very rigid.”

“I hope the plant I bought doesn’t disturb your work,” Ezri says. She couldn’t pick up any odor coming off the plant, but she knows her nose is way less sensitive than theirs. (She once spilled maybe two drops of pesto on Kukalaka which she spot-cleaned with a fragrance-free soap. When Julian came home, he sensed immediately that Kukalaka had been defiled. Not only that, he could tell exactly what kind of soap she used and identify the pesto’s replicator pattern number.)

“I wouldn’t worry,” Lauren says. “Most non-flowering houseplants don’t emit too strong of an odor. In any case, we’re all making a point to acclimate ourselves to being around living plant life. Some of us more enthusiastically than others.” She tilts her head at what Ezri assumes is Jack’s door.

“You didn’t have plants at the Institute?” Ezri asks.

Lauren examines her fingernails. “We weren’t allowed.”

“Why not?” Wary of appearing too shrink-like, Ezri doesn’t mention the decades of research proving the positive effects of keeping plants on sentient lifeforms.

“According to Dr. Loews, they didn’t want us getting upset when the plant died. But I imagine the staff were afraid we would synthesize some kind of poison and overthrow our jailers.”

“That’s how Jack knew I was telling the truth about not coming here as a counselor,” Ezri says. “Because I brought a plant.”

“I’m curious. Why did you come?” Lauren asks.

“To welcome you to the station, I suppose.”

“And do you personally welcome everyone who moves to Deep Space Nine?”

“No, I…”

“Then why us?” Before Ezri can stumble through an answer, Lauren carries on: “I have a few hypotheses. In order of least to most probable. One: Professional curiosity. We _are_ rather fascinating specimens. Two: Concern for Julian. Since he’s been avoiding you like the Denobulan plague, you thought we might offer some clues about his well-being. Three: Latent jealousy. Even though you broke things off with Julian, you can’t help but feel a bit jealous of the new pet project that took your place. And most likely… Four: Loneliness. You crave contact with other people who were never meant to exist and, unlike Julian, aren’t coping so well with that fact.” She smiles up at Ezri. “How did I do?”

“Um…” Ezri presses a hand to her belly, feeling the beginnings of nausea. With her free hand, she reaches helplessly for the divan. “Do you mind if I…?”

Lauren arches an eyebrow. “Will it stop you from vomiting?”

Ezri nods.

“Then be my guest.”

Lauren curls her legs beneath her, clearing room. Ezri carefully lowers herself onto the couch, and indulges the impulse to put her head between her knees.

“Thanks,” Ezri says, blood rushing to her head. “Touching a stable object helps with the motion sickness.”

“And putting your head between your legs?” Lauren asks.

“Stops me from passing out.”

Lauren clicks her tongue. “The patients really do run the asylum on DS9.”

“I’m not usually like this. I thought I was getting better, but in the past few months…”

“You’re right back at square one?”

“Exactly.”

“It makes sense,” Lauren says. “After all, you did just break up with your primary coping mechanism.”

“Julian wasn’t a coping mechanism. He was a fling, a mistake. I thought—”

“You thought,” Lauren interrupts, “that Julian could be your connection to your previous hosts, a quick-and-easy way to make peace with being joined. Or at least a tool for forging your own niche on the station. But eventually eros won out over denial, and you realized that Julian wasn’t your type.”

Her head still dangling between her knees, Ezri grumbles, “That’s not helping.”

“Don’t bother feeling guilty.” Sitting up, Lauren rests a hand on Ezri’s back. “I mean, do you honestly think Julian would have spared you a second glance if he didn’t see you as the ghost of Jadzia? Cute isn't really his type.”

With a deep breath, Ezri straightens her spine, bringing her head back to its rightful, lofty position atop her shoulders. “That helped.” She runs a hand through her hair. “I mean, it was horribly unkind and totally inappropriate to say to someone you just met, but it helped.”

“We tend to say what other people won’t,” Lauren responds. “I think that has value.”

“You’re right about the first part.” Ezri braves turning her head to look at Lauren. “I’ve been on the station for a little over a year and people still walk on eggshells around me. I can’t tell if they’re trying not to speak ill of the dead, or if they think one word of criticism will make me fall apart. That I’ll have some kind of breakdown right there in ops, and the Dax symbiont will burrow out of me like a flea jumping off a dead dog.”

“Morbid.” Lauren’s hand slithers up Ezri’s back, settling on her shoulder. “I like it.”

She’s leaning close enough to trigger Ezri’s fight or flight response which is sensitive even by Trill standards. Ezri swallows, battling the urge to run from something scary in its promise of pleasure. 

“Well,” she says, edging closer to Lauren, “when you’ve died and killed as many times as I have, morbid becomes an aesthetic.”

With deliberate effort, Lauren uncurls her legs, swinging them onto Ezri’s lap. “I’ve never been with a Trill before.”

Unsure of what to do with her hands, Ezri lets them fall on Lauren’s bare legs. “I wish I could say the same about human Augments.”

Lauren chortles. “We prefer the term ‘mutant.’”

“Mutant it is.” Ezri smiles.

Lauren shifts her legs, rubbing the smooth flesh against Ezri’s palms. Ezri closes her eyes as a seismic wave runs through her body.

“Wow, um.” Ezri bites her bottom lip. “Your skin is really soft.”

“One of the benefits of my botched augmentation,” Lauren drawls. “The geneticists were so caught up in fixing my brain that they didn’t notice my rather eccentric connective tissue. Fortunately, that left me with velvety skin and very pliant joints.” She infuses a bit of huskiness into her voice: “I’m what humans used to call ‘double-jointed.’”

“Does it hurt?” Ezri asks.

“Oh, chronically. But I spend plenty of time in bed so…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare.” Lauren wraps her arm around Ezri’s shoulders. “If I wanted to fix this, I could. The gene therapy is legal and easily accessible.”

“Why don’t you? If I could fix all of this—” Ezri gestures vaguely at her entire person. “—I would.”

“Genetic modification—even the legal gene therapies—aren’t like having surgery. They fundamentally change a person. You were a scientist, right?”

Ezri nods. “A few times.”

“Then I won’t bother dumbing this down. At least, not too much.” Lauren smirks. “The neurodevelopmental disorder my augmentations were supposed to correct shows strong comorbidity with my connective tissue disorder. Altering the genes that code for collagen may alter the intergenic DNA correlated with that neurodevelopmental disorder. Due to the high doses of some very illegal drugs I was treated with as a child, if I receive gene therapy now, those changes to my intergenic DNA will be effectuated not in an epigenetic sense, but in a—”

“Completely altering who you are as a person sense?” Ezri asks.

“Exactly. I like who I am. I always have even before I was augmented.”

“And those pieces of intergenic DNA—they’re not just part of who you are. They’re part of who you used to be. They’re the part the doctors missed.”

“What can I say?” Lauren shrugs. “We mutants are a sentimental people. Some of us hold onto teddy bears, and some of us stubbornly cling to DNA that doesn’t even code a protein.”

“You got some gorgeous skin out of it.”

Ezri’s shaky hand slides along the supple inside of Lauren’s leg toward the hem of her skirt. As her fingertips breach the warmth of Lauren’s thigh, Lauren gasps, arching her back, her breasts pressed against Ezri.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Julian says sharply as he crosses the room. 

Ezri pulls back her hand as if burned by the crest of Lauren’s thighs. Flight impulse fully engaged, she moves to get up, but finds Lauren’s arms and legs locked around her. She looks to Lauren pleadingly.

“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Lauren warns. “Unless you want to risk dislocating one or more of my joints.”

“One Tarkalean tea, please,” Julian calls to the replicator much louder than necessary.

Lauren cranes her head around Ezri’s body (which despite Ezri’s best efforts has not developed a sudden case of invisibility) to look at Julian. “You seem tense.”

Glaring down into his steaming mug, Julian’s voice drips with sarcasm: “Oh, no. Not at all. I’ve never been more relaxed.”

“Glad to hear it.” Lauren looks back to Ezri. “Now where were we?”

“You know, I expect this sort of thing from you, Lauren,” Julian snaps. “But from you, Ezri?”

Lauren grits her teeth. “For god’s sakes, Julian. She told you she was a lesbian; what did you think she was going to do?”

“It’s not—” Julian stammers. “Of course, I—” He sighs and walks over to the divan where he can address the Trill-frozen-in-the-headlights directly. “I knew you were going to move on eventually. And I knew it was going to be with a woman. But I didn’t exact—I thought you’d have more tact than—my god, Ezri, can I not have this one thing? Just one thing on this station that doesn’t involve you? We work together, we frequent the same places, we share the same friends, hell, we even share Jadzia. So, I try to create just one thing, a single program in which you have no part, and yet…” He gestures to the hand formerly ensconced in Lauren’s skirt.

“A program?” Lauren asks indignantly. “I am not a program. This—” She loosens her legs’ vice grip on Ezri to lift up her skirt, flashing Julian. “—is not a program. And it sure as hell isn’t your program, doctor.”

Julian shields his eyes. “I know. You’re not a program, you’re a person. And more than that, you’re my friend. So you’ll understand why I’d be upset to find my ex-girlfriend’s hand up your skirt. No matter how ignoble that may be, I think I’m entitled to a certain emotional response.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Lauren pulls her skirt back down, legs tightening around Ezri. “Being my friend means accepting that I’m going to sleep with whoever I want whenever I want. Even Jack accepts that.”

“It’s true,” Jack calls from somewhere. “She bedded my mother and I didn’t say anything about it.”

Julian gapes. “His mother? Really, Lauren?”

Lauren shrugs. “It was her birthday.”

“Actually it was _my_ birthday,” Jack yells through the walls.

“Are you sure?” Lauren asks over her shoulder.

“She only ever visited on his birthdays,” Patrick adds, his voice coming from an unidentified corner of their quarters.

“See?” Lauren smiles at Julian. “Jack doesn’t think I betrayed our friendship by boinking his horrendously neglectful mother on his birthday. So why should you bother with getting upset about me and Ezri having a little fun?”

“Because…”Julian takes a deep breath. “...it doesn’t fit.”

“It doesn’t fit?” Lauren asks, her demeanor shifting in a subtle way Ezri can’t describe.

“It doesn’t fit,” Julian repeats.

“If it doesn’t fit, you should’ve just said that it doesn’t fit. Why doesn’t it fit?”

Julian bites his lip. “I invited you all here with the expectation, however naive and selfish, that you would serve as a support system—or, at the very least, a distraction—as I finally make my exit from the great Dax saga. And finding you with Ezri hardly fits those expectations.”

Lauren nods. “Do you need some Kukalaka time?”

“No.” Julian grimaces pitifully. “His fur still smells like basil.”

“Would it help if I laid down on top of you?” Patrick calls from god knows where.

Julian’s shoulders slump. “Maybe.” Face downcast, cradling his mug, Julian shuffles out of the room.

Lauren releases her grip on Ezri, dropping her legs back into her lap. “Sorry about that.”

Ezri takes a long, deep breath before turning to Lauren. “What just happened?”

Lauren pushes back Ezri’s bangs. “You tell me, counselor.”

“Well.” Ezri looks upward as if the answer lies in the fingers playing with her hair. “Prior to your arrival, Julian created a mental schema for the events to follow. Reality clashed with expectation, creating anxiety. Which Patrick has volunteered to alleviate through deep pressure stimulation.” Her mouth twitches into a grin. “Like you just did by wrapping your arms and legs around me.”

Lauren trails her finger down Ezri’s spots. “Did it work?”

“Neither of us are covered in vomit, so I’d mark it down as a success.”

Lauren cups her cheek, thumb tracing the outline of Ezri’s spots, totally undeterred by the mention of vomit. This mutant may be a keeper.

Ezri licks her lips preemptively, cursing herself for not putting on chapstick before coming over. Of course, how could she have ever guessed her visit would land her here just about to kiss a woman for the first time since being joined.

Lauren pulls her in close, their lips meeting for a slow, lingering kiss. She pulls away just enough to whisper, “Come to my bedroom. We won’t be interrupted again.”

Ezri wants more than anything to lift Lauren into a bridal carry (she is surprisingly strong for her size) and disappear behind whatever door belongs to her bedroom. But Ezri’s developed a newfound caution—perhaps from Tobin—after rushing into things with Julian.

“Before…” She nuzzles her nose against Lauren’s cheek. “Before we go any further, I need to know: what do you want out of this?”

Following along Ezri’s spots, Lauren’s hand caresses down her cheek to her breast. “I thought that much was obvious,” she says with a squeeze.

“I mean,” Ezri says, “is this just a one-time thing? Are you looking for something casual? Or—”

“I’m looking to have fun. It lasts however long it lasts.”

“Then I should warn you: I’m not exactly known as the fun Dax. Going out and doing things just for the hell of it was more Curzon and Jadzia’s game. I’m the ‘sit in the corner and try not to blabber on about your neuroses Dax.’”

“I’ve found that neuroses can be very fun.” Lauren teases Ezri’s nipple through her bra and shirt. “Especially when you indulge them.”

“As a counselor,” Ezri says, leaning into Lauren’s touch, “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

Lauren licks the run of Ezri’s spots, beginning at her clavicle and ending at her hairline. “Good thing you’re not here as a counselor.”

Ezri hefts Lauren into her arms. “No, I’m here as Ezri Dax. And the two of us have gone without the love of a woman for far too long.”

Lauren’s eyes twinkle. “Then I’ll do my best to make this memorable.”

She keeps her word. Mutants, as Ezri realizes over and over that night, always excel at their interests.


End file.
